Monday, November 29, 2010

Some of you may be interested in this unique opportunity to retrace the steps of the 1961 Freedom Rides. 40 students will be chosen for the experience. PBS is accepting applications now until January 17th. More info is at:

JOIN students from across the country in retracing the route of the 1961 Freedom Rides. Accepted students will participate at no cost to them. All transportation, hotel and food expenses are covered by American Experience.

PARTICIPATE in an intergenerational conversation about civic engagement.
What does it mean today? What has changed since 1961?
What inspires young people to “get on the bus”?

SHARE the journey.
Through live blogging, Twitter, and Facebook, the students on the bus will be able to share their experiences and, in a sense, bring others along on their journey.

Application period is open!
Application deadline: January 17, 2011
Decisions announced: February 2011

Friday, November 19, 2010

A youth prison camp in Mississippi that houses inmates aged 13-22, is accused of keeping youth in "horrific" and "barbaric" conditions.

One young man was tied to his bunk for almost 24 hours, brutally raped and sexually assaulted after prison staff failed to heed his pleas for protection. Other youth suffered multiple stabbings and beatings—including one youth who will live with permanent brain damage as a result of an attack in which prison staff were entirely complicit.

Just by stating the facts they uncovered through their survey, the Southern Poverty Law Center lays bare the troubling relationship between our food and the brutal exploitation of immigrant women.

1989 article in Florida indicates that sexual harassment against farmworker women was so pervasive that women referred to the fields as the “green motel.”20 Similarly, the EEOC reports that women in California refer to the fields as “fil de calzon,” or the fields of panties, because sexual harassment is so widespread.21

Saturday, November 6, 2010

We spent part of class Thursday in the Learning Center working on presentations. The students were instructed to take an idea from their journals (this is the writing we do in class, where we use history as a tool to help understand the present), and find some media representation of that idea (an image, song, short video, etc.). After finding the image, they were instructed to condense their thoughts to no more than three bullet points, each using no more than five words to explain how the media is connected with the idea or the course material. These were to be put in text box, in powerpoint, along with the image. Finally, they were to create a google account ( if they didn't have one, already), and upload their Powerpoint slide into google documents. Tuesday, they will present this single slide to the class, and explain it in no more than two minutes, preferably one.